Tag: politics

Posted on

American Anti-Intellectualism Fuels the New War on College

American higher education finds itself under siege, facing unprecedented political attacks that threaten its fundamental mission and autonomy. What makes these assaults particularly devastating is not just their intensity, but the fertile ground of public sentiment that has enabled them to take root and flourish. The convergence of deep-seated anti-intellectual currents with a dramatic erosion of trust in universities has created the perfect conditions for opportunistic politicians to weaponize higher education as a cultural and political battleground.

Once seen as sites of personal and social betterment, universities and colleges nationwide now struggle with a profound crisis of confidence. This shift in perception is hardly anecdotal. Recent surveys reveal that but 36 percent in the U.S. feel positively about higher education, reflecting serious concerns over the institution’s efficacy and fairness.[i] Moreover, a growing partisan divide complicates the erosion of trust. While 59 percent of Democrats express confidence in higher education, a staggering 81 percent of Republican voters now view the institution unfavorably. This chasm speaks volumes about the politicization of education in America, with college increasingly seen as a battleground for antagonistic ideologies.[ii]

A pragmatic shift in educational preferences complements this rift. Mirroring student attitudes is the reality that most Americans now regard trade schools and vocational training as equivalent or superior to four-year institutions in delivering practical education. This pivot reflects changing educational values and an indictment of the entire enterprise of higher education. The growing appeal of alternative educational paths suggests a fundamental reevaluation of what constitutes valuable knowledge and skills in today’s rapidly changing job market. The roots of this mistrust are multifaceted, extending beyond mere economic calculations to encompass broader socio-political undercurrents. Often associated with privilege and intellectual elitism, higher education increasingly is viewed through a lens of class-based suspicion.

Continue reading “American Anti-Intellectualism Fuels the New War on College”

Posted on

Resistance Is Not Futile

The interpretation of student resistance has undergone dramatic transformation over the past century, reflecting broader shifts in how we understand human behavior, learning, and institutional power. This evolution reveals as much about our own assumptions and blind spots as it does about student behavior itself. Historically, educational institutions approached resistance through a distinctly moralistic lens. Students who failed to comply were seen as suffering from character defects and thereby lacking discipline, respect, or proper upbringing. This perspective, rooted in patriarchal authority structures and commodified approaches to knowledge, positioned educators as moral arbiters whose job was to correct wayward youth through punishment, shame, and rigid behavioral expectations.[i] Resistance was seen as willful disobedience requiring forceful correction rather than thoughtful analysis.

The rise of behaviorism in the mid-20th century brought a different but equally reductive approach. Resistance became reframed as a technical problem representing a failure of stimulus-response systems that could be solved through better classroom management techniques. B.F. Skinner’s operant conditioning principles dominated educational psychology, suggesting that resistant behaviors could be eliminated through appropriate schedules of reinforcement and punishment.[ii] This scientific veneer made the approach seem more sophisticated, but it still treated resistant learners as broken mechanisms needing repair rather than human beings with complex inner lives and legitimate concerns about their educational experiences.

Continue reading “Resistance Is Not Futile”

Posted on

Cultural Democracy: Politics, Media, New Technology (SUNY Press, 1997)

We live in an era of democratic contradiction. As the Cold War recedes into history and the apparent triumph of liberal democracy spreads around the globe, the domestic state of democracy within the United States continues to erode. Rather than a nation where citizens feel empowered in their common governance, the US has become a land of where the vast majority of citizens hate their leaders yet never vote. Massive anti-incumbency sentiments and resentment toward representative government parallel the rise of grassroots militia movements and media demagogues. Clearly something has gone wrong with democracy in the US–or more precisely with the way democracy is understood and exercised.

Nowhere are these difficulties more pronounced than in battles over cultural issues. Debates about canonical values, revisionist curricula, artistic censorship, and freedom of expression have moved from the margins of public debate to its center. Increasingly, people across the political spectrum recognize the strategic role of the arts and humanities in shaping human identities and influencing politics. At a historical moment lacking in superpower conflicts, ideological debate has become internalized as it did in the 1950s.  Once again battles that were waged with guns and bullets are now fought with ideas and symbols. And once again access to the debate is a crucial issue, as attempts are made to exclude voices that would contest the status quo.

This book is premised on the regrettable fact that the US has nothing even approaching an egalitarian realm of public communication and civic ritual. Although identity politics and the so-called “culture wars” have done much to expand the national conversation about pluralism and values, these issues have also induced heightened levels of divisiveness and antagonism.  As television and computers have made more information available to people than ever before, the electorate finds itself increasingly uninformed and confused.  And while democracy is a word that politicians and media personalities bandy about with great alacrity, its usefulness has become all but exhausted by divergent interests it has come to serve.